Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I can make my voice sound like...me, but I keep falling back into my old voice. Anyone had this problem? Know how to stop it?

How long have you been practicing? It might just be an issue of practice. I find that I drop back to my old voice automatically around people I don't want to know yet, but that's more of a social stimulus.

What do you mean by practicing in this case?

Working with your new voice. I do a lot of practice at home and have been taking voice feminization therapy for a bit over a month now and I can keep in the proper range for long conversations now.

I am little over a year in practicing my voice. I can switch back and forth pretty easily.

However since I am pre-everything - It does take me some days to "warm" up my female voice and honestly I think not using my female voice all the time is the reason for this.

It really take a long long time, and I still not 100% in love with my voice. But we can always improve as long as we put practicing in what we are trying to improve.

I think self confidence is a major part of it. My speech therapist tells me my voice is perfect and that I don't need any more sessions with her. But sometimes my voice just drops. Not down to the old levels, but it's noticably lower than it should be. I think the biggest reason it happens (for me) is when I get insecure and don't want to sound like I'm exaggerating, especially in front of people I've met before but don't really know. Like speaking to the cashiers at the local supermarket. I've lived here for more than a decade, so they all recognize me, and that makes me more nervous about using my voice.

While I never fall back to my pre-transition voice, I notice that if I am relaxed, around friends, drunk, tired or exhausted, Iwill use a voice that is really low. It takes much more conscious effort to get it up in those contexts. If I am around new people or working or doing a lot, I just also add quite a bit of pitch level to my voice. I would like the low voice to go away just as my male voice went away, but I dont manage it yet. It comes back after 15 years still. I think thats not like that for all and as i said its not my "old voice" its some sort of in-between voice that just is most comfortable.

Quote from: anjaq on October 30, 2013, 07:04:28 PMits not my "old voice" its some sort of in-between voice that just is most comfortable.

That's what I'm experiencing as well. There's a really comfortable voice that's lower than the "target" voice, and it's easy to fall down into it.